Christopher Sprigman weighs in on the GoldieBlox fair use suit against the Beastie Boys, and joins the board of Creative Commons

On December 12, Professor Christopher Sprigman published an article on Slate arguing that Goldieblox, the San Francisco, Calif.-based toy company being sued by the Beastie Boys for using a parody of their 1987 song "Girls" to promote their toys, should win the lawsuit. As Americans took sides in the fight between the rap group and the startup toymaker, NYU Law faculty weighed in with a series of tweets.

This month, Sprigman also joined the board of directors of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig that provides legal and technological tools for sharing and collaboration. Thousands of creators around the world have used Creative Commons licenses to create more than half a billion works that are open to collaboration in the worlds of education, art, academia, data, science, and more. Sprigman is one of eight new board directors at Creative Commons. “The board includes some of the world’s foremost experts in technology, intellectual property law, the internet, and business and social entrepreneurship," said Board Chair Paul Brest in a statement. "It’s appropriate that we’re announcing the new board on December 16, the date when it all began eleven years ago.”